Active Citizenship
The ECA has a long history of work relating to active citizenship. This can be traced back to the roots of the Association which formed in 1920 as the Educational Settlements Association (ESA) to support the growing number of educational settlements. The idea that lay at the heart of the first settlement was that "all should share in community action" and it was mandatory for all Association members to have a centre committee with full student and staff participation. This sense of engagement still remains strong today. The Association believes that active citizenship is vital to today's society and that learning, which empowers and encourages people to become active in their communities, has positive effects on both the individual and the community. 10 years ago when the Government was introducing the National Curriculum requirement for citizenship, the principal adviser, Bernard Crick, who at the time was preparing the structures for younger learners, spent two days in an intensive ECA seminar exploring issues of adult citizenship learning .
Work that the ECA has since carried out around active citizenship and empowerment includes: -
Community Sector Coalition
The ECA is a founder member of the Community Sector Coalition (CSC). The Coalition acts as an authoritative and independent voice for the community sector. Its members work together to influence policy that supports an empowered community sector as part of an active civil society. The Association acts as the 'Education Strand' leader within the Coalition and is helping to drive forward its work at this time of great structural change.
Liberating Leadership
The Community Sector Coalition's leadership programme 'Liberating Leadership' was developed to help recognise and support leadership in groups and collective community activities. It formed part of the 3 year Leadership and Governance Workstream funded by Capacitybuilders' National Support Services Programme. 'Liberating Leadership' describes the reality of leadership in a small community group and aids 'a process of inspiring, supporting, working with and influencing others in a group, team, organisation or community, based on an agreed set of principles, to achieve common goals and social change. It has resulted in a training programme for development workers and a toolkit for community groups to help unlock their hidden 'people power' and work more effectively together. The ECA was a member of the project group that advised the authors on the approaches to the construction of the published Toolkit.
The original funding for this programme came to an end in March 2011 and Liberating Leadership has now become a community interest company of which the ECA's Bernard Godding is a Director. To download more information on the 'Liberating Leadership' course, click here.
Democracy Matters
The ECA is a member of Democracy Matters, an alliance to promote learning for practical politics and and effective voice. This means learning how to take part in public life at any level from the very local to global, including enabling people to have a voice, to bring about social and political change and raise issues themselves as well as responding to decision-making opportunities. For more information visit the Democracy Matters website.
Campaigning is OK! they might not like it but it gets things done
The ECA was one of the organisers of the East Midlands 'Make a Difference' Campaign Roadshow which took place in Leicester in 
December 2008. The event was one of 9 regional events across the country aimed at voluntary support organisations, support provider/umbrella or second tier organisations, front line campaigners and individual campaigners. The aim of the events was to raise awareness of the benefits of campaigning, promote training and support to make campaigning more effective (capacity building) and develop regional support networks for campaigning. At the day long event delegates were offered access to tools and training for advocacy and campaigning, information on materials, resources and funding and an opportunity to make new contacts and network. Contributors to the event included Patricia Hewitt MP, Titus Alexander of Novas Scarman and a representative from Parliamentary Outreach.
The roadshows resulted in the 'Campaigning is OK! they might not like it but it gets things done' publication, prepared in conjunction with Titus Alexander. This is a short guide to help community and voluntary organisations develop skills and support for effective campaigning. It includes chapters on why campaign?, giving people the support they need and training for advocacy. Please click here to download a PDF of the publication.
Leicester Community Network
The Association carried out the Leicester Community Network project, funded by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), in Leicester from 2008 to 2009. The project created a framework for exchanging information, views and sharing experiences. Its aim was to strengthen the relationship between the broad community, equality groups, the media, training and educational organisations in Leicester; Britain's most culturally diverse city. ECA locality workers made contact with a wide range of groups and organisations and arranged opportunities for them to come together in community venues across the city. By the end of the project the network consisted of 59 participant organisations with an email exchange group of 63 contacts. The overall feedback for the project was positive with community representatives valuing opportunities to close the gap between their realities and others perceptions of them within their communities.
"We'd seen this place but we'd never have thought to come inside. We're glad we did"
P.T. service user at Network for Change
TEACh - Teaching European Active Citizenship
The Association joined partners from across Europe for this Grundtvig funded project. In 2004-2005 the TEACh partners developed a course for those who teach active citizenship to adults in non-formal education. The course helps people understand how to relate to community and society, how their belonging gives them both rights and duties and how to take citizenship from a personal to local, national and global levels. As part of this it addresses competencies and aptitudes such as self-expression, intercultural dialogue, negotiation, belonging, inclusion, attentiveness and sensitivity, openness, externalisation, empowerment, knowledge, values and attitudes and explores their relation to active participation in society and methods for teaching those competencies. The courses started in 2006 and have been held across Europe. ECA trustee Judith Robinson has been one of the main TEACh tutors from the second course onwards.
"The course was a brilliant opportunity and I feel privileged to have a place"
Course participant Imants Slisans, Latvia
In 2008 the European Commission selected TEACh from two hundred mobility 
projects it has recently funded as 1 of 10 projects which stand out for their quality. It was featured in the Grundtvig publication 'Mobility Creates Opportunities, European Success Stories'.
"The TEACh project gives Europe a practical and tangible approach to provide training in the difficult but nevertheless extremely important subject of active European citizenship"
'Mobility Creates Opportunities, European Success Stories' 2008
Leadership in the Round
In response to the 2008 'Communities in Control: real people, real power' White Paper focusing on empowerment, the Association organised the 'Leadership in the Round' conference. The event looked at ways in which third sector and adult learning organisations could integrate citizenship into their work.
Take Part
Take Part provides a distinctive approach to learning which enables people to make an active contribution to their communities as well as how to influence public policies and services. It focuses on: -
- Community-based learning to build skills, confidence and experience needed to tackle local policy, social and technical challenges
- Informal practical approach that gives people an understanding of how power works and how they can learn to influence decisions and policies
- open dialogue and reflection as key learning tools, recognising that change in a community emerges from individuals working together.
ECA CEO and Chair Bernard Godding played a key role in producing the Take Part 'The national learning framework for active learning for active citizenship' publication. Drawing on the TEACh project, the framework provides a manual for learning providers, enabling the development of programmes of citizenship learning, to help adults gain knowledge, skills and confidence so they can become empowered as members of their community. The publication was the result of a 2 year pilot project 'Active Learning for Active Citizenship', in which 7 hubs in the English regions tried out different approaches to devising and providing citizenship learning with a diverse range of participants. The see 'The national learning framework for active learning for active citizenship' click here.